Name: Rob Ousbey

Organization: Distilled

Session: Attracting Visitors Through SEO

Date & Time: Wednesday, October 21 | 11:00-12:00PM

Summary: Rob will share the insights gained from years of experience delivering online marketing strategies, the trends in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and the mistakes organizations of all sizes are making. He’ll discuss how to combine a strategic approach that sets brands up for success with the tactics that actually get them there. Leave with practical next steps for you and your team.

MW: Tell us more about yourself.

RO: As a kid growing up in England, I’d always wanted to work in radio broadcasting. I put in my time working through the industry and ended up as a producer and presenter on a national UK radio station.

When the bottom fell out of that industry, I found that the things we did well on-air – creating engaging content that built a passionate audience – could translate very well onto the web.

After freelancing for a while, I met Distilled’s founders; they’d built a small, committed team that was doing awesome things to experiment with what was possible on the web. I worked with them in London for a few years, and then moved to the US to establish Distilled’s presence here. I now lead an amazing team of marketers with expertise in technical SEO, analytics, content creation, content promotion and more.

My wife and I have a son who is growing up to be a true Seattleite and asks more questions per day than I ever thought possible.

MW: What is new and next in SEO?

RO: Google has finally been able to incorporate some metrics into their algorithm that will make the search experience significantly better for users. ‘Brand strength’ is a great example; if people are talking about your brand online, explicitly looking for you and recommending you to others, then Google will be more inclined to make you visible in search.

In a similar way, Google is also looking more closely at how people engage with your site and content. If a search visitor takes one look at a page and goes straight back to the search results, it’s a strong signal that the page shouldn’t be ranking for that query. Google has a huge amount of data about people’s activities online, so there are increasingly subtle and powerful signals they can use to create great search results. All this has taken us a long way from just putting the right keywords on a page.

MW: What challenges have you seen in content?

RO: One challenge we’ve been facing with content promotion is the move that many bloggers have made from hobbyist to professional. Looking back to the 2008-2013 period, there were dozens of people blogging about almost any niche imaginable, and they were always excited to see that you’d written or created something relevant they could share with their audience. These days many more people are blogging as a full-time job. They have worked hard to nurture an audience they can monetize, so they are more cautious about sharing below-average content on their blog and more inclined to ask for a fee (often a substantial one) to give any brand coverage on their site.

MW: What are you most excited about for Converge 2015?

RO: I’m looking forward to learning from some of the stellar speakers in this line up. I also love learning from people who are deeply invested in a particular industry, so I’m excited to be spending time with all these experts in the higher education space.

And of course, I can’t wait to experience my first trip to New Orleans; it looks like the Converge team has a fantastic event prepared for us!

MW: Attend Converge 2015 to hear Rob and many other great speakers. We hope to see you there!